Ranking the UC's

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wisegops
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Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:43 am

Ranking the UC's

Post by wisegops » Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:59 am

I was wondering in what order would you rank the Universities of California, not Berkeley or Santa Barbara, but the rest, i.e, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Davis..?

How would you rank them on the overall strength of the department and in the areas of gravitational & high energy physics?

kroner
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Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:58 am

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by kroner » Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:35 pm

If you're just looking for a ranking of different physics programs, http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... s/rankings is a good place to start. How they rank in terms of your specific interests is going to require some research.

Alexthephysicsmaster
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Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:51 pm

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by Alexthephysicsmaster » Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:59 pm

I've heard that Irvine has much more money than Davis, though I have not independently verified that. Don't let Riverside's low ranking (#64) fool you -- they are a good school, almost comparable to Davis. Merced is a joke, they don't even have a physics department per se! UCLA is very competitive. So basically, in terms of reputation.

Santa Barbara / Berkeley
...
UCLA
...
Irvine/Davis
Riverside
...
San Francisco
Merced

Which leaves out San Diego and Santa Cruz, not sure how they fit into it.

Big_Bobby
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Joined: Tue May 04, 2010 1:34 am

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by Big_Bobby » Thu May 06, 2010 2:23 pm

From my own research into the UC's programs, the ranking goes something like this

Berkeley - only above Santa Barbara because of it's name
Santa Babara
UCLA
San Diego
Irvine
Santa Cruz
Davis

and I'm not sure about the rest.

badphysicist
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Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 11:20 pm

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by badphysicist » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:13 am

Alexthephysicsmaster wrote:I've heard that Irvine has much more money than Davis, though I have not independently verified that. Don't let Riverside's low ranking (#64) fool you -- they are a good school, almost comparable to Davis. Merced is a joke, they don't even have a physics department per se! UCLA is very competitive. So basically, in terms of reputation.

Santa Barbara / Berkeley
...
UCLA
...
Irvine/Davis
Riverside
...
San Francisco
Merced

Which leaves out San Diego and Santa Cruz, not sure how they fit into it.
admissionprof wrote:First, it is definitely not the worst of the UC's. UC Merced is worse. Second, it very much depends on your field of interest. Their experimental high energy is very strong, their high energy theory is pretty good, their condensed matter has a lot of people and is quite good. Third, being from a top ten school will help in getting faculty jobs, but below that it doesn't really matter. Your advisor and your work is more important.
Dragging up a year old thread, but how would this kind of perception of UCM affect chance of landing a job (faculty position)? It doesn't seem all that good if even professors have low opinions of a fairly new program.


got the admissionprof's quote from: http://www.physicsgre.com/viewtopic.php ... 76&p=22321

negru
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Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by negru » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:28 am

I agree with UCLA right after UCB and UCSB. I mean they do have fronsdal, the father of higher spin field theory, ferrara, the father of supersymmetric yang mills and supergravity, bern which is one the biggest and most active names in gravity amplitudes...

Come to think of it I'd personally go with UCSB > UCLA > UCB.

bfollinprm
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Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by bfollinprm » Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:48 am

Alexthephysicsmaster wrote:Don't let Riverside's low ranking (#64) fool you -- they are a good school, almost comparable to Davis.
They've even got John Baez, one of the few mathematicians whose more popular for his nontechnical work than his papers (he's responsible for the crackpot meme).

He's also a pretty good mathematical physicist, so there's that.

jterning
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Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by jterning » Tue May 17, 2011 1:10 pm

The US News and World Report rankings of US physics departments said:

UCs:
5 UCB
10 UCSB
14 UCSD
19 UCLA
26 UCD
30 UCI
40 UCSC
52 UCR

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HappyQuark
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:08 am

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by HappyQuark » Tue May 17, 2011 4:25 pm

jterning wrote:The US News and World Report rankings of US physics departments said:

UCs:
5 UCB
10 UCSB
14 UCSD
19 UCLA
26 UCD
30 UCI
40 UCSC
52 UCR
Thanks for this! I don't think any of us were even aware of the US News ranking. Yay!

XOXOXOXOXO, Hugs and Kisses!

-HappyQuark

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grae313
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Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 8:46 pm

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by grae313 » Tue May 17, 2011 9:43 pm

HappyQuark wrote:
jterning wrote:The US News and World Report rankings of US physics departments said:

UCs:
5 UCB
10 UCSB
14 UCSD
19 UCLA
26 UCD
30 UCI
40 UCSC
52 UCR
Thanks for this! I don't think any of us were even aware of the US News ranking. Yay!

XOXOXOXOXO, Hugs and Kisses!

-HappyQuark
It's nice to have it here for the sake of completeness and future searches, and when the rankings outside the top few aren't free.

venyey
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Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:37 am

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by venyey » Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:40 am

If there are such official ranking so they say for themselves i thing..but it's all depends and it's necessary to try their programms on yourself))

bfollinprm
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Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:44 am

Re: Ranking the UC's

Post by bfollinprm » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:51 pm

I forgot about this thread....

I visited 5 UC schools, and of the 5 I visited, I'd put them in this order:

Purely physics
1. UC Berkeley
2. UCSD
3. UC Davis
4. UC Irvine
5. UC Santa Cruz

Cosmology/astrophysics (my field)
1. UC Berkeley
2a. UC Irvine
2b. UC Davis
4. UC San Diego
5. UC Santa Cruz



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